NSH,
I'd say the forum is a great place to start. Poke around, read posts here and there, it's a great basis to get familiar with agency adoption, matching, the emotional roller coaster, etc. Make yourself at home. I can't to your specific questions. I had some strong feelings that our baby would be a boy but we did not state a gender preference and he was a boy! I felt like it was all things working out as they were supposed to.
Suzi